A Beautiful Mind is a 2001 American film based on the life of John Forbes Nash, a Nobel Laureate in Economics. The film was directed by Ron Howard and written by Akiva Goldsman. It was inspired by a bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-nominated 1998 book of the same name by Sylvia Nasar. The film stars Russell Crowe, along with Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris and Paul Bettany.

The story begins in the early years of Nash's life at Princeton University as he develops his "original idea" that will revolutionize the world of mathematics. Early in the movie, Nash begins developing paranoid schizophrenia and endures delusional episodes and hallucinations while painfully watching the loss and burden his condition brings on his wife and friends.

This movie contains examples of:

Absent-Minded Professor: So much so that when meeting new people he asks a third party to confirm the new person really exists.

Answer Cut: Sol tries to convince John to continue taking his medication, telling him there's other things besides work. John asks what. Camera cuts to a pacifier lying on a table while his son cries in the background

John Nash: I don't exactly know what I am required to say in order for you to have intercourse with me. But could we assume that I said all that. I mean essentially we are talking about fluid exchange, right? So could we go just straight to the sex.

Dumbass Has a Point: Subverted. When explaining the sinister Soviet conspiracy currently underway across the US, Parcher notes "McCarthy is an idiot, but unfortunately that doesn't make him wrong". Of course, Parcher is one of Nash's hallucinations and the entire conspiracy doesn't exist, so Joe McCarthy really is just an idiot.

E = MC Hammer: Averted. Ron Howard hired actual mathematics professors to hand double for Crowe during the writing sequences to make sure all of his equations were mathematically accurate.

Eureka Moment: Nash develops his theory out of his friends' fighting over a girl. Not that the explanation he gives is anything like Nash's real contributions to game theory.

And he finally determines that his hallucinations aren't real after realizing preteen Marcie hasn't aged in all the years he's known her.

Everyone Loves Blondes: The college guys see a group of co-eds and all start talking about how they all want the blonde.

There are small hints about Nash's increasing schizophrenia, like when Marcie is running through the flock of pigeons, none of them fly away from her.

All three hallucinatory characters are first heard before they're seen, as real schizophrenic delusions tend to be auditory before they become visual. In real life, Nash only heard the hallucinations, he didn't see them.

Foregone Conclusion: Only to those familiar with Nash. However, the script was written under the (correct) assumption that most of the audience wouldn't know who he was.

Forgets to Eat: Nash. It's a bit of a trick though, and later in life he seems to have outgrown this problem without imaginary reminders.

John has fun with it later, when he's visited by a real friend after realizing his problem. Said friend goes to sit down, and John warns him he's about to sit on "Harvey." The real friend has a moment of awkward panic before John starts laughing, admitting to the gag, and saying there's no point in being nuts if you can't have some fun with it.

No Medication for Me: When Nash realizes he can't respond to his wife, he stops taking his meds and promptly falls back into his old delusions. Also, while the real John Nash never went back to taking antipsychotics, the film inserted a line about him "taking newer medications" because the writers did not want to encourage moviegoers with mental illnesses to stop therapy.

Not That Kind of Doctor: Nash asks if a note from his doctor will get him out of teaching, only to be reminded that he is a doctor, and no it won't.

Offscreen Teleportation: William, "Big Brother," manages to go from pointing a gun at John's head, then, when John turns towards a distraction, has William in front of him again. Of course, William had the advantage of being a hallucination.

Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Russel Crowe's American accent tends to not only appear and disappear from scene to scene throughout the film, but at times he sounds like he's from different regions of the United States.

Politically Correct History: The real Nash criticized the Jewish involvement in communism. He was prone to alcoholism as a result of his schizophrenia. He also, according to unproven rumors, had numerous homosexual affairs.

Pragmatic Adaptation: To get involved with John Nash's story it was necessary to present the hallucinations as though they were real to the audience, which would have been impossible going straight by the real story that Nash only had auditory hallucinations. Presenting fictional characters as supposed to real characters (especially his "roommate") made it a much more interesting movie.

Also, John and his wife divorced in the 60s, and were still apart by the time he was awarded the Nobel Prize. They did remain exceptionally close, she provided him a home after his psychiatric discharge, and in fact they remarried the same year the movie came out. Similarly, some of the more controversial aspects of both his mental illness and personal life were removed so there wouldn't seem to be a connection.

Red Scare: Nash is brought to The Pentagon to solve a Russian code that has been found.

Also Nash's work reading through newspapers and magazines looking for patterns that will lead to finding a suitcase nuke that the Russians will use to blow up part of America. Which of course isn't real, it is part of his paranoid schizophrenia.

Rule of Perception: Until the audience sees that John isn't taking his meds, he acts like he is, right down to having ED. Less than five seconds after his pill stash is revealed, he starts cracking another code.

The Reveal: John has been hoarding his pills. And he's crazy and needs them.

Schizo Tech: All the government technology have not been invented yet when Nash saw them, which is a clue that it's all a hallucination.

Science-Related Memetic Disorder: Nash found that his anti-schizophrenia meds drained his energy and left him unable to accomplish anything, so he ditched the pills and battled his mental illness with cold logic.

Smart People Play Chess: Nash plays Go with another genius at one point. When Nash loses, he has an emotional reaction that is easily mistaken for being a Sore Loser. However, it's actually the beginning of a revelation that will eventually land him a Nobel Prize.

Nash really was known for his belief that Go is a flawed game, and even invented his own in which the first move and perfect play will guarantee victory, marketed as Hex.

Take a Third Option: During a class that Nash teaches, he insists on keeping the windows shut despite the fact that it makes the room extremely hot, because a construction worker is jackhammering outside. "Your comfort takes a backseat to my being able to hear myself speak." Alicia, then one of his students, takes a third option: Opening the window, she gets the attention of the construction worker, explains the situation, and asks him very politely if he wouldn't mind continuing his work after class. Nash is suitably impressed.

Unreliable Narrator: Nash. To make it worse, the official film descriptions were written as if from his viewpoint.

Windmill Crusader: Nash was hired by the US government in their struggle against terrorism. What neither Nash nor his closest superiors know is that Nash is not only brilliant but also a paranoid schizophrenic who take orders from two kinds of US officials: The real and the imaginary. (He's a complex guy.) The latter “branch of the government” takes him on a quest that only keep getting weirder as the (imaginary) terrorists get closer to their nefarious goal of planting nukes in American cities.

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